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February 1—7

Hello Tina
Thanks for your email. I think I am winning with the thrips ,I have only found dead ones this week .However I am sure that there will be plenty waiting to hatch!, so I am not complacent.!
You mentioned chickweed in you email .Chris’s vegetable plot is just outside my orchid greenhouse and it is heavily invaded by chickweed ,which he he can’t eradicate..I might try putting some pollen in the greenhouse.
Are you coming to our show?,if so I look forward to seeing you then.

Best Wishes

Hilary

Tina Stagg wrote Re: [OrchidTalk] orchids

Hello Hilary

I have never had thrips so cannot comment but I am beginning to wonder about sacrificial plants. Years ago I found that a clematis montana just outside the greenhouse attracted all the snails from miles around. They no longer had the slightest interest in orchids. Companion planting is practiced in vegetable gardens so why not in, or near, greenhouses? I am not too keen on having plants in soil in with my orchids (although I do have a few ferns for shows) so I suggest outside might be better. Nasturtiums and roses attract aphids and I have read that thrips like chickweed pollen. Whether you want the resultant chickweed seedlings all over the garden is, of course, debatable!

I do hang yellow strips just inside the vents to catch anything that dares to fly in from outside but I think thrips are now coming in with house plants – throw out any Christmas poinsettias you may have lingering.

As I have said previously , here and elsewhere, thrips spend part of
their life-cycle in the soil − on the floor of the greenhouse, or in the
plant pot, whilst they do the equivalent of metamorphosing from a grub
to a flying insect. So irt sems obvious that it is worth trying to kill
them at that stage, too.

I have previously used Provado 2, dunking the pots, but wondered whether
it should be weaker, or stronger than if used as a spray ; or whether it
would work at all.

So a few weeks ago, thinking to try the same thing again, but this time
using Bug-Off ( which is said to be E2809CgoodE2809D for thrips −
which actually means bad for thrips − ha-ha ) I thought to ask advice
from Scotts − who make the stuff.

The answer I got was quite interesting. Use Bug-Off Vine Killer, rather
than the ordinary − its specially formulated for soil drench use. Of
course they stopped short of a recommendation − they have not tested it
for this purpose, I have no doubt. They also said, try it out on a few
plants first, and see that there is no damage etc a month afterwards
before you proceed.

So I bought a supply , used it on a cymbidium − just starting a new
growth , and also on a Oncidium ( intergeneric hybrid of some kind).
That was on January 4th. Just got back from a couple of weeks away, and
inspected them − both look good, no marks, leaf damage, wilt, etc etc.
They have not been watered for that 4 or 5 week period, nor sprayed −
lest I dilute the mix etc.

So today I have started dunking all the cymbidiums ; holding below the
surface of a bucket of mixture until bubbles stop, then draining well.
I shall do all the Oncidiums next, and then spray everything else with
the same stuff again. Maybe I will change all the glue traps after that
- I see that ones in place for that 5 week period have say half a dozen
black things on them -( on each) which is not bad anyway − maybe they
are all fungus flies anyway !

By the way , you did spot the obvious mistake I expect in my last Thrips
message E280A6 the stuff is Vine Weevil Killer, not Vine
KillerE280A6.(!) and I forgot to mention that it has a systemic
action too . I shall not water the plants which have been dunked for a
couple of weeks − if the weather remains sunny − maybe 3 if it turns
cloudy , so as to avoid diluting whatever is in the pots.

On another subject − Disas − I have been copying Peter, and growing
cold, in an Access Wall frame − night temperatures have been down to 2
or 3 C regularly in there, and up to 10 or even 15 in the clear sun
today for example. They do look good ; lots of new growths around the
main growth(s) .
I check the water every 2 or 3 weeks − I am surprised at how quickly the
pH rises from say 5.4 when I have changed the water up to a figure which
is too high. For example it was pH 6.1 when I left home 2 weeks ago, and
7.4 when I got back. Most of my plants are in New Zealand Sphag'
and Perlite, 50:50 , and the rest in Irish Moss Peat and Perlite mix. I
intend to do some experiments to try and discover which component is
responsible for the rise. I suspect the Perlite − which often has a pH
of 7 or 8, depending on the nature of the sand used to make it., and
unfortunately one can't tell before the purchase. If it is the
Perlite, maybe I will try a few plants in a gritty sand, if I can find a
silicious one.

But apart from that, the next few months in the Disa collection will be
quite exciting I think !